Betty Moleya
Pretoria - A liturgical remembrance will be held tomorrow for eight boys who lost their lives when a fire broke out at the old Elim Church in Sunnyside exactly 30 years ago.
The memorial will take place at the old church site. The boys, the youngest of whom was 9 and the oldest 17, lived at the church shelter, which at the time could only accommodate 20.
Stephan de Beer said he was a worker at the church, helping to take care of the children. He said it was hard to find all the families and those who were affected by the fire as they were now scattered all over South Africa.
“This is the first remembrance to be held in their honour. We could only get a few of the families at this short notice. We wished to have this commemoration to honour them, but also to have knowledge and conversation of those survived, the workers and the families.”
The property accommodated Sunnyside’s first boy shelter and had been set up by Jeremy Kruger and a team of volunteers. It accommodated boys from all walks of life, including street kids, those who had run-ins with the law, and others with nowhere to go.
De Beer said the tragedy came at a time where there was a lot of tension between police and people in the country. “There was a transition to democracy and there were incidents with the police, it was always believed that there was foul play.”
He said they “might be considering reviving the case due to the belief of foul play”, but an inquest then had failed to proof arson, and nobody was ever prosecuted.
“Forensic investigator David Klatzow spoke of it as a travesty of justice. This was in the sensitive period of the transition to democracy.”
A book titled Steeped in Blood: The Life and Times of a Forensic Scientist by Klatzow paints a vivid picture of what happened on the night of the fire.
Pretoria News